Haunt

Haunt- Part 1

It was raining. Strange how that was the thought that seemed to register in John’s mind as he stood inside the crime scene tape that surrounded Sherlock’s latest horror case. A small town named Rowen in Northern Wales seemed to have found themselves their own twisted version of Jack the Ripper.

According to the police report of the local authorities, three kids had gone missing from a playground two days ago without a trace. No witnesses were located but the older sister of one of the boys reported them absent four hours after he was supposed to have returned home for supper.

It was a small town, so a search party was established and began to look for the boys in the woods that ran for miles just outside the small town. After six hours of nothing turning up in the dark, come sunrise, one of the weary men who had volunteered to help search made a rather gruesome breakthrough.

Deeper in the woods than was possible to access in the pitch black were several large shapes hanging from branches of five dead maples strewn out between the thick of the pine trees. The man, whose name was not disclosed in the report, stated that he thought the shapes to be shot animals hung up so predators couldn’t get to them. He was curious as to who the animals belonged and began looking for a tag that would tell.

In the low light, he couldn’t see much until he got closer to one of the lower hanging items. He suddenly found himself looking at the chest cavity of a human. The man, realizing what it was, panicked and ran to the rest of the group where he re-told his finding. Upon further inspection by authorities, it was found that each rib cage had a certain organ in it. A couple hearts, a liver, and a few kidneys were identified.

It was after connections to several vanishing over the years where established that Scotland Yard was contacted and ultimately Sherlock was called in.

The three missing boys were found an hour later hiding in a barn owned by one of the families. They were unharmed and asleep on the hay. John was glad to hear that none of what remained to be corpses belonged to any of them.

DI Lestrade now stood next to John as they watched the dark haired detective dart around the clearing in the vigorous way that was common in the younger Holmes. While Sherlock did his thing, John was left to take notes.

“So, do you know what exactly happened here?” Lestrade rolled his shoulders and ran a hand through his hair, water continued to lightly pelt his coat as he answered, “We don’t know much about how anything was done, just some sick-o decided to go on a killing spree. Forensics showed that they matched several other missing persons as far back as the last eighteen months. Although this has happened before according to town records.”

John’s brow furrowed in confusion, “Happened before?” Lestrade nodded and tilted his head in question as Sherlock knelt down and began to shift through one of the broken carcasses. “Yea, sixty years ago another serial killing happened. Same place as this one. Evidence lacked severely but one man was convicted out of fear.”

The explanation was interrupted as Sergeant Donovan appeared suddenly with steaming Styrofoam cups of coffee. “So I see you brought the freak and his pet,” she snorted as she handed one of the hot beverages to the DI and the doctor; both gladly accepted the warmth to their chilled fingers. “Nice to see you too Sally,” John nodded in her direction. After receiving an eye roll and departure of the officer, clearly still upset about Sherlock’s deductions of her and Anderson’s on again off again relationship, Lestrade continued to give away the name of the innocent man.

“His name was Aaron Carter, hung himself in the barn before the authorities could get their hands on him.” John interrupted to ask a question, “Why would he hang himself if he didn’t do it?” Lestrade shrugged, “Guess he didn’t want to get handed over to the people of the town. Several fathers were pretty pissed off at Aaron even though he didn’t do it, probably wanted to avoid getting beaten or worse.” Their attention was dragged way from the conversation as they watched Sherlock begin climbing one of the trees that had one of the bodies tied to it.